17 thoughts on “LBD – poem for dVerse”

This was really captivating Sarah. A perspective of life I have never had the ability to see. This was great, I loved it! Full of wonderful imagery, shared graciously by you. Thank you. I never had a perfect dress, though I have certainly required my share of forgiveness, and was fortunate enough to be granted much of it.

I’m not really one for dressing up, but I do love black dresses, Sarah. I love the way you link life events and dresses in this poem, and the way you remember the feel of the spider dress. I identify with the always adjusting and the too hot, too cold. I especially love ‘punk Cinders in the ashes’ and ‘mini-crini’ – I always wanted a dress like that. As I said before, if I’d been born several decades later, I’d have been a Goth.

This was partly inspired by my daughter heading off to a party in her first LBD – pretty much what I would have worn at her age. It made me think about all the black dresses I have owned – and I still have quite a few of them, because they haven’t aged, even though I have…

We all need a perfect dress indeed and more often than not, the black ones seem to last the longest. I love how these descriptive dresses reveal a lifetime, with their different moods and occasions. This is my favourite image because it is so carefree: “I swayed, half-dazed,/half-dancing, black widow/in my spider dress”.

Late late to the reading; apologies for that! BUT oh so glad I read this poem of yours. It is truly amazing. I’m reading along, about each dress . . . and smiling…the mention of Audrey Hepburn, the lack of cleavage, all of it here…and then wham! This stanza:
“the funeral one, worn with
a black bolero, jet-beaded,
standing in the rain
and weeping, yoked by the family;”
WOW! Weeping, yoked by the family….such a powerful powerful stanza and ending. The tone shifts remarkably. So very very well done!